I was wondering if there is a reason that falsely claiming to have supernatural powers or attainments is a parajika in the vinaya rules.The reason I ask is because slander is considered a lesser offence, but to my reasoning it would be just as immoral. I'm not intending to come across as argumentative, just curious

"But in this world with its gods, its lords of death, and its supreme beings, in this population with its ascetics and brahmins, its gods and humans, this is the greatest gangster: he who untruthfully and groundlessly boasts about a super-human quality. Why is that? Monks, you’ve eaten the country’s almsfood by theft."

Whoever should declare himself
to be other than he truly is,
Has eaten this by theft,
like a cheater who has deceived.

Many ocher-necks of bad qualities,
uncontrolled and wicked—
By their wicked deeds,
they are reborn in hell.

It is better to eat an iron ball,
heated, like a burning flame,
Than for the immoral and uncontrolled
to eat the country’s alms.

Thanks Bhante, I'm guessing that during the Buddha's time that there were some charlatans profiteering from claiming to have special powers and taking advantage of people? Would that be a fair interpretation?

Thanks Bhante, I'm guessing that during the Buddha's time that there were some charlatans profiteering from claiming to have special powers and taking advantage of people? Would that be a fair interpretation?

I don't know if there's any mention of this being done in the early texts, but it wouldn't be at all surprising. If shameless bhikkhus resorted to it, then it seems likely that shameless wanderers and ascetics of other persuasions would have done so too.

The Pali has mahācora, lit. "great thief", and I.B. Horner rendered it so. But the version of the English Vinaya at Sutta Central has been greatly revised, in part to correct Horner's errors, but also to present the whole work in a much more modernised and demotic idiom.

While the corrections are certainly welcome, the modernising and vulgarising of the translation are not always well-conceived. For example, neither Horner's literal rendering "great thief" nor Sutta Central's free and vulgar rendering "gangster" are good translations of mahācora — a term that denotes a master thief, as opposed to a thief's apprentice. "Great thief" fails to convey this, while "gangster" is simply misleading, for a mahācora is not necessarily a member of any gang.

Perhaps some of these revisions are subjective in that they come from the individual's sensibilities and culture. I quite like the term "gangster" but that's probably because I'm a bit uncouth and vulgar myself